. . . after missing a high-speed head-on collision by a few feet. After my book talk in Porto (a good crowd, lots of questions [all about religion vs. science, none about science itself], and a good sale of my Portuguese edition, four of us from the biology institute headed up the Douro valley, where I’m now ensconced on a farm that grows grapes for making vintage port. It is gorgeous here, and atmospheric; I’ll try to post some photos tomorrow.
But during our drive, a car somehow got on the wrong side of the barrier of the two-lane road and suddenly we found ourselves heading at high speed directly toward another pair of headlights in the same lane. Fortunately, Nuno, my host, reacted automatically and steered the car to the right, missing that car by inches. Had he not done that, and had there not been a rare bit of space on the right side of the road, all four of us would be dead.
I have no idea whether the idiot who was driving fast on the wrong side of a divided highway survived his encounter with the cars behind us.
Fortunately, Ceiling Cat was watching, and saved four of us, including His professorial namesake.
I have a lot of nice pictures, including moar fudz and my visit to the port lodges, and will try to put them up before I leave for Vienna on the 11th. Of course I have no idea what’s going on on the internet, and I’m very glad about that!
Whoah! Glad to hear you survived to tell the tale.
I think you mean tail….
I see what you did there, and I like it. 😉
I am sure that Ceiling Cat is very very pleased with Nuno.
Glad you’re safe. Teh sunroof cat wuz watching.
So glad ceiling cat was looking out for you! Ceiling cat was busy today – a friend and I missed a dear by inches this morning on our way to a science conference in Indianapolis. So close! Of course in this case, the tragic consequences would have been for the deer, but I am still quite grateful to ceiling cat for the deer’s sake (as well as my friend’s car.)
Ceiling Cat sees all and can be in many places at the same time.
Praise His holy fur. May you be near his radiant purr for many years yet!
He twitched his holy whiskers and whisked you away from death. He knew that it was too soon to join the holy catomine.
However, your brain has had a huge shock and will require holy food and substances to help. Whew!
Thanks be to Spud!
Dang auto-correct!!! I KNOW I wrote deer!
Deer Beth,
It’s much edgier to run over a dear than a deer. We hope it wasn’t that you were trying to murder a loved one with an automobile. On the dearness scale there’s deer, then there’s Bambi’s mother, and then Bambi, each one progressively dearer. 😉
Don’t we all wish we could edit our posts on this website? I’ve been in that same boat way too many times.
So happy you were in the car with an alert and skilled driver. If you haven’t already, soon of course you will receive emails telling you it was God that saved you. Or it was God who threatened your life as a warning.
The world would be so much poorer to lose such a champion of reason, truth, and intellectual honesty! A collective sigh of relief.
If this isn’t clear proof of Ceiling Cat’s existence, I don’t know what is.
My sincere condolences to your adrenal glads, which I’m sure are working overtime to replenish their stores.
And thank the gods that that’s the extent of the harm you befell!
…reminds me of the joke, which you’ve probably already heard. A woman calls her husband. “Henry, be careful when you go home. The news just reported that there’s an idiot driving the worng way on the freeway.”
Henry replies, “Thanks, sweetheart, but I’m kinda busy. It’s not just one idiot — it’s hundreds!”
And, on a not-so-lighthearted note…I have a good friend who’s a prosecutor for the county. About a year or so ago, she won a conviction against an asshole who tried to commit suicide by getting into a head-on collision. He survived, but the woman he ran into didn’t.
Cheers,
b&
Also, this is why Google’s self-driving cars can’t come on the market too soon.
b&
Be careful what you wish for. Once Google’s car hits the market, you know that Apple’s model won’t be far behind…
Four of my grad school classmates were driving down to Philly from New York. They overshot their exit, and instead of getting off at the next exit, they did a U-turn in one of those spots reserved for cops and emergency vehicles. The predictable resulted. Both people in the oncoming car were killed, as were the three passengers in my classmates’ car. The driver suffered a broken ankle.
Random mishaps! Glad to hear you’re ok. Good thing you have port to douse your nerves. Praise Ceiling Cat
The port is probably the reason the other guy was driving the wrong way…
Oh my- how scary!!! So glad you’re okay! I meant to email sooner and thank you for the info on the Evolution online course that starts next week- 25,000 signed up! . I’m very much looking forward to it and am preparing by reading WEIT now. I am happy that I had an opportunity to thank you!
The story alone increased my SNS activity. I’m glad that you’re all safe and near port. Thank Nuno!
I hope the rest of your trip is without incident — take care professor 🙂
Enjoy your internet fast! Close calls like your near-death highway experience makes us realize how mortal we are. As John Lennon said, “Life goes on within you and without you!” Glad to hear you are still on this side of the ground. Remember, the trick is to keep breathing!
Surely not a few posters here, like me, have been a passenger in a car driven by a careless – if not reckless – driver who, among other bad habits, gets as close to the bumper of the car in fron of him on the three lane-plus interstate before moving over to pass.
Kudos to your alert, skilled, considerate driver.
Oh my, how horrible! Glad to hear that you’ve survived, and that you’re now recuperating appropriately.
Perhaps this is completely inappropriate, but this is something in the back of my head, and as I greatly value your intellectual contributions to, well, life, I must ask: do you consider your incident to have been a near miss or a near hit?
Or maybe a close call?
Glad you are OK!
One suspects it was a tourist from UK Japan or here in Australia.
We have a constant number of accidents here in the Northern Territory, from people who, when fatigued, wander to the wrong side with awful consequences.
It could of course be fixed if all you idiots changed and drove on the left(correct side…Sword arm to the enemy)!
Ficus Rules
I know myself well enough to know that I would be capable of wandering into the wrong lane, should I ever find myself behind the driver’s wheel. Therefore, I find that the most amiable thing to do is for me to never get a license!
(I grew up in Sweden but am now living in the UK. And somehow I find that people in BOTH countries drive on the wrong side of the road… No middle of the road here, no!)
Oh dear, you’ve reminded me of a long ago experience driving in italy. I drove from Munich to Venice, and in a section of Northern Italy there were winding two-lane mountain roads with no center divide. Trucks would drive as close as possible to the right shoulder, and when a car wanted to pass them they didn’t wait until oncoming traffic was absent; instead they straddled the center line, forming an unofficial third lane in the middle of the road, relying on traffic in the opposite direction to drift far enough toward their shoulder to avoid collision.
Terrifying the first time this happened to me. I encountered the same thing at least 3 or 4 times on that trip, so it must be standard procedure.
Thank Ceiling Cat you made it!
Try to stay safe for the rest of your trip.
Vintage port would be just the ticket after an encounter like that.
In any case, we are all glad you are still with us.
Damn, a game of chicken on a highway? Glad you escaped unscathed.
I vividly remember witnessing the aftermath of a fatal accident just seconds after it happened caused by !*exactly*! the circumstances you described 30 years ago. It was a relatively elderly driver who simply didn’t realize he had entered on the exit ramp and was going in the wrong direction. He had no business being on the road, but didn’t deserve to die.
As Dan Dennett said after his surgery, “Thank goodness”.
Skill and luck, you couldn’t ask for more. I am glad Ceiling Cat saw it fitting to supply both. Everything else sounds lovely, and perhaps the excitement will heighten your receptivity to enjoying yourself (not that I think you need any help in that department 🙂
Glad you made it. Having had a similar experience some years ago, I can imagine how you feel.
In my case four people behind me were not so lucky and were injured, one of them seriously. The perpetrator turned out to be an elderly man under the influence of medicines; he “voluntarily” accepted a life-time driving ban to escape a court case.
It was several months before I could drive over that stretch of road without my heart starting to race.
Probably a tired/drunk Brit forgetting which side of the road to drive on!
The ceiling cat sent two of it’s angels to save you:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/2012/10/07/rare-rusty-spotted-cat-kittens-born-in-berlin/
I can’t wait to hear how Wien compares with the Portuguese towns.
Thank Ceiling Cat, I couldn’t have born to lose both Christopher Hitchens and you in the same year, or the same decade for that matter.